


Reputation

by qwanderer



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Tony Stark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gaslighting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 18:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2702174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark has been told that the only thing he's good for is carrying on his father's legacy - every single part of it. So he damn well does his best. </p><p>It's long after he's killed the man who told him that that he realizes how messed up that truly was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reputation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Want You to Love Me (i want you to leave me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678744) by [Unadulterated](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unadulterated/pseuds/Unadulterated). 



> I was reading the Aces Trump Kings series and I realized that I had so many headcanons about ace Tony and how Obie treated him and that thing he and Happy do. Anyway, this vaguely tries to be compatible with the Aces Trump Kings universe but I put more of my socially-calculating Tony into it.

The parties are never Tony's thing. But as much as people understand that socializing can be boring, they at least expect him to be interested in the girls. Especially Obie. 

"Come on, get out there, flirt with the ladies," Obie would tell him. "You can't be all work all the time, am I right?" 

Tony kind of thinks he's wrong. 

* * *

It's confusing, after the first couple of times his exploits have gotten him into the rags. It's unbearable after his parents die, and they're all talking about how he's out of control, ready to wreck himself as well. 

He asks Obie about it, exactly once, before a party that he really doesn't want to go to. 

"Those aren't the guys you need to impress, my boy," his godfather tells him. "You should feel free to be a ladies' man, just like your pop. It's in your blood, and people know that. Okay? So don't worry about the trash. Worry about the people who are our business partners, our contacts." Obie sits back, looking at Tony steadily as if he's imparting the secrets of the universe. "These guys want to know you're like them. They want to know you're like Howard was at his peak. Not just a great inventor, but a great networker, and a tremendous flirt. They want to see that you're a chip off the old block, and you're gonna deliver for them." 

Tony frowns. "I can deliver right now. I can innovate faster than Dad ever could. I can impress them, I promise, if you'll just _let me work._ " 

Obie slaps him on the back. "That's good, Tony," he says. "But it might not always be enough. Connections. Reputation. That's going to see you through the times when you fall into a slump. It happened to your father, and it'll probably happen to you. I just want you to be ready for when that happens." 

Tony wrinkles his nose, still not turning away from his work. "Reputation, huh? What if I don't care?" 

Obie sighs. "Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but there's really not much else worth having." 

And that's about all Tony can handle hearing right now. None of it's what he wants to hear. 

None of it's right. 

While Obie was being honest about some things, it would be years before Tony would start to see how it had all been part of a scheme to tank Tony's reputation in the long term. To make Tony look like a rogue inventor, distractable, flaky at the best of times, and Obie, the steady, responsible face of the company - the real power behind the business. 

Obie being encouraging in general, but the yelling when Tony steps over that completely indetectible line into the bad kind of scandal - it's all part of a deep, dark, murky gaslighting scheme, where he says two mutually exclusive things and expects Tony to be able to find that acceptable place in the middle. _Play on your dad's reputation - but don't end up like him. Drink enough to look like you can party with the best of 'em - but don't get so intoxicated that you do something irretrievably stupid._ It's all so muddy - and he can never find that spot. Especially when he's drinking _specifically so that_ he'll be able to do things he'd never normally do. 

_Lie low when the shit hits the fan - but don't let the social aspects of running the company pass you by._ The worst of it, Tony eventually realizes when he looks back, had been all those times when Obie told him he had been expected at some event or meeting right after he'd completely missed the thing. And Tony could never be absolutely sure that Obadiah hadn't told him earlier, because Tony does tend to wave off things like reminders of his schedule when his head is deep in the guts of a machine. 

Tony's never quite sure that it isn't just him being built wrong, being preoccupied with the wrong things. 

But the thing with Rhodey. The award ceremony. That should have raised a warning flag, because Tony had really wanted to be there, he really had, and he'd told Obie to come get him when it was time. Tony had been gambling, had maybe gotten a little bit caught up in the numbers, the motions, the calculations of odds, but he hadn't been too deep, hadn't even been that drunk yet, and he should have noticed Obie if he'd come to drag the inventor away. 

In retrospect, Obie wasn't worrying any more about the little things that might raise suspicion in the long term. In retrospect, Obie was just itching to give his little golden goose a backhanded eulogy, and take the company and everything that came with it for himself. 

In retrospect, everything about Obadiah Stane and the things he'd told an impressionable young engineer stunk to high heaven. 

But that hadn't been what Tony had been thinking right then, standing in front of that casino, having completely missed the thing he'd walked in to do. He'd been thinking about how he needed to earn back those lost points, do something to raise his esteem in the eyes of the press and his fellow powerful businesspeople. 

He didn't have any desire to engage in anything at all with that reporter. But he'd learned how it worked with young female reporters. If they came at you with accusations, they were either going to stay hostile and nothing you could say or do would change their minds, or they were willing to trade a favorable report of him for an evening of sex. 

Tony decided he needed the favorable report. 

* * *

He's gotten better over the years about knowing how a given "yes" or "no" will affect his rep, what situations will turn into shitstorms if he goes one way or the other. He's gotten better at avoiding situations where he'll run into people with whom both could prove potentially disastrous. But in the absence of other known factors, "yes" still seems like the safer bet a lot of the time. And Tony's gotten used to the grind. 

Happy's the only person who probably suspects how much calculation goes into who Tony ends up in bed with, how much it's down to his reputation, his image. Happy probably doesn't suspect why. 

They've had this conversation dozens of times before. "Average guy's perspective, Happy. One to ten. Where's she sit?" or the like. It's gotten streamlined a lot. "Okay" is an eight, about cover girl level, not completely irresistible but definitely smoking. Tony always asks, if it isn't someone he's heard of, seen on the cover of a magazine, something. 

So Happy is a little thrown by the whole public reveal that Tony is ace, but it doesn't take that long for things to start to slot together. 

"So you weren't just using me as a pre-screener," Happy says. "You actually couldn't tell." 

"Nope," Tony says. "Well, they're pretty to look at. But from the way your rating system completely failed to line up with that? Completely different thing." Tony shrugs. 

Happy laughs, and shakes his head. "You appreciate Pepper, though, right?" he asks. 

"Pepper Potts," says Tony, "is the most beautiful, most angelic woman on the face of the planet. She deserves everything I can give her. And you'd damn well better know I realize that." 

"I know," says Happy, smiling, and he continues to drive.


End file.
